THE DIVINE FIGURE OF THE NORTH.
“Dear Wylie,--I am sorry to have to tell you that in consequence of
the action of the authorities in sending troops against them, Stoyan
and his band have now increased the ransom they demand for us to
twenty thousand pounds. They also say that if the pursuit continues,
first one and then another of us will be killed, and the ransom for
the remaining one will be raised by five thousand pounds a-week. I
tell you honestly that the efforts of the troops can have no result
beyond irritating the brigands and making our position worse, and that
we are at this moment hidden where I believe no power on earth could
find us. The ladies agree with me, very reluctantly.--Yours truly,
“Maurice Smith.
“Zoe Smith.
“Eirene Smith.”
This was written on the upper half of a sheet from Zoe’s large
note-book, and at the foot appeared the following, which could be torn
off before the recipient made the first portion public:--
“For goodness’ sake, Wylie, drop it. Your intentions are excellent,
but they don’t seem to come off. The girls are half-dead with
exhaustion after the way you have been hunting us about, and we are at
present cheerfully accommodated underground, with only the faintest
glimmer of light. I couldn’t tell you where we are if I would, and I
wouldn’t if I could. For some reason or other the brigands have taken
a dislike to you, and if you persist in staying up here, I am given to
understand that you will find yourself confronted with our dead bodies
in various uncomfortable attitudes. Cut away to Therma and hurry up
that ransom. This is the kindest thing you can do for us.”
On his return from the vain pursuit of the brigands which followed the
meeting with the routed detachment, Wylie discovered this letter
pinned with a dagger to the doorpost of the house where he had taken
up his quarters. None of the villagers had seen who brought it, and no
one could offer any suggestion on the subject, but whether the
universal ignorance was real, or the result of a secret understanding
with the brigands, did not appear. The letter had the desired effect,
sending Wylie back to Therma in something more nearly approaching
panic than he had ever known. He was not as reckless of the lives of
his friends as he had appeared, but he had undoubtedly brought them
into imminent peril, though his course had been adopted in utter
desperation. His first appearance at Therma, bearing the story of what
had happened and the demand for a ransom, had been the signal for the
commencement of a wild tragi-comedy of irresponsibility. The Roumi
authorities declared flatly that there were no brigands in Emathia, so
that it was obviously impossible that the travellers could have been
carried off by brigands. The British representatives, to whom Wylie
appealed at the same time, cherished grave doubts as to the wisdom of
paying a ransom, since no British traveller in Emathia would be safe
after such a precedent had been set. Professor Panagiotis, torn by
conflicting emotions, proved almost equally unsatisfactory. He had
found himself of late subjected to a disquieting espionage, which
filled him with fear lest his plans had in some way been divined. In
such a case, it seemed to him that his only chance was to grip his
important secret more tightly than ever. Lest Wylie should make use of
it to bring pressure on any of the Governments concerned, he kept it
even from him, pooh-poohing his reminder of the explanations Maurice
had promised him, and showing an uneasy curiosity on the subject of
Eirene, for whose existence he could not account. He volunteered,
indeed, to write to Maurice’s bankers, asking them to advance the
money for the ransom, with the natural result that they demanded
either a cheque signed by Maurice or an interview with Wylie and a
sight of his authority, and Wylie could not bring himself to leave
Emathia while his friends’ fate hung in the balance. The Professor’s
sole useful contribution to the debate was the conviction that the
outrage had been perpetrated by a band of Thracian marauders, with
which the newspapers in his interest made Europe ring. The Thracian
Government, approached on the subject, replied with virtuous
indignation that its attitude was perfectly correct. It had always
studiously discouraged--in the most official manner--the formation of
such bands, and refused them permission to cross the frontier into
Emathia. If the reprehensible activity of private persons had managed
to organise a band, the authorities viewed it with entire detachment,
and the Roumi Government was welcome to do as it liked with the
members, when it caught them.
This acknowledgment that there might be foreign, though not native,
brigands on the sacred soil of Emathia stirred the Roumi officials to
a pitch of activity positively dangerous. Urged on by Professor
Panagiotis and his adherents, they sent troops into the hills, and
loudly proclaimed their intention of sweeping the miscreants from the
face of the earth, and rescuing the captives without fee or reward.
Into the vortex of this expedition Wylie was whirled, partly by the
demand of the authorities that he should accompany the troops and
behold the vengeance exacted, partly by his own hope that he might be
able to make the measures taken effectual. His friend Palmer, smarting
under the loss of the faithful Haji Ahmad, had willingly joined him in
a bold journey through the heart of the brigands’ country, in the hope
that the luggage so lavishly displayed would prove a bait sufficient
to ensure their being carried off also, when the best trackers in the
country, provided by Professor Panagiotis, would follow them up, and
thus discover the brigands’ stronghold. Demo’s recognition of Wylie in
his disguise had prevented this, but the journey had its fruit in the
discovery of the boot-tracks of the captives, and thus enabled Wylie
to lay his plans for a systematic search. As Maurice had conjectured,
it was the torrent-bed, the use of which as a path he had not
suspected, which had thrown him out when he felt certain that he had
the brigands safe in one particular group of hills, and the
carelessness of the detachment which had been sent on to hold the pass
enabled his prey to slip through his fingers. Thus baffled, he had no
alternative but to hurry back to Therma, in compliance with Maurice’s
earnest request, only to find fresh discouragements awaiting him.
Before leaving for the hills, he had written a full account of the
capture to Maurice’s bankers, enclosing a certified copy of the first
letter signed by the three captives, in the hope that they might be
induced to depart from their attitude of severe correctness. Their
answer had now arrived, making it evident that the worthy country
gentlemen, who had known Maurice and Zoe all their lives, and their
parents and grandparents before them, regarded the intrusion of Eirene
into the letter as evidence of a not very cleverly constructed plot,
concocted, it was to be presumed, by Wylie and Professor Panagiotis,
for the purpose of extorting money. Whether they imagined the
Professor and Wylie were holding the captives in durance, or doubted
their being in durance at all, or what they thought Eirene had to do
with the matter, they did not say, but they wound up a lengthy refusal
to do anything without seeing Wylie, with the coldly sarcastic remark
that the Roumi Government was obviously the proper channel from which
to obtain the ransom.
“Why can’t the old idiots see that it’s a matter of life and death?”
mused Wylie bitterly, as he read the letter on the terrace of his
hotel. “I’m not going cap in hand to them to be treated like a
pickpocket and sent off with a flea in my ear, while the Smiths are
being massacred. I’d rather pay the money myself. I wonder if I could
manage to raise it in the time? I don’t see where it’s to come from.
Or is there any one else I could worry into taking action?”
He thought over the long list of people to whom he had written urgent
letters--every one he had ever heard of who was likely to have
influence with the press or with any of the Governments interested in
Emathia--and realised wrathfully that, though his journalistic appeals
had produced a good deal of frothy rhetoric and bloodthirsty
declamation in the columns of newspapers of the baser sort, the
practical effect appeared to be _nil_. True, an artist on the staff of
the ‘Plastic,’ who happened to be in the neighbourhood--as distances
go in Eastern Europe--had been ordered to the scene of the capture,
which was now, on the well-established principle of the steed and the
stable-door, kept constantly patrolled by police, and had made many
sketches of the localities concerned, but without stirring the placid
blood of the public to any extraordinary heat. He had moved on to
Therma now, and was staying at the hotel, and as Wylie halted
irresolutely in his anger and perplexity outside the window of the
smoking-room, he came out and joined him.
“I say, you don’t mind my speaking to you, do you?” he asked, in a
pleasant, boyish voice. “I know you’re the man who was captured with
the Smiths, and I want to find out something about them. I’m sick of
sketching a set of rotten roadsides--might as well be a camera at
once--and there’s not a sensation in the whole lot. What I’m thinking
of is a full-page drawing of the outrage itself--call it a fancy
picture if you like, but that’s the sort of thing that tells. Besides,
if I work up the figures from your description, it’s not a fancy
picture. Do you mind?”
“I don’t mind what I do that’s likely to give the slightest help in
rescuing them,” said Wylie emphatically.
“I know. Horribly rough on them and you too--all this red tape. Let’s
go ahead, then. What sort of a chap is Smith?”
“Cambridge man, usual style, nothing particular about him, but an
awfully good sort. His eldest sister told me that he got a gold medal
for poetry this spring, but you’d never think it to look at him.”
“A gold medal? Not for an English poem? I was there myself, and there
was no Smith in. My young brother got a medal for a Greek epigram, and
he was so keen on my seeing him in all his glory that I ran down for
the day. Took the opportunity to get half a page of sketches for the
‘Daily Plastic,’ too, as the affair isn’t much known. They keep the
date dark lest the men should get in and rag--so my brother told me.
Now what was the chap’s name who got the English medal? It was a St
Saviour’s man, and the Master was so proud he talked of nothing else
for a week.”
“Miss Smith told me her brother got it,” said Wylie, in the tone which
implies that there is no more to be said.
“But there must be a mistake somewhere. Look here; I believe I have
that very sketch-book in my room. I’ll get it, and we can see the
fellow’s name.”
He vanished indoors, and presently returned breathless, flicking over
the leaves of a well-filled sketch-book.
“Here it is!” he cried. “Teffany! I knew there was something queer
about the name.” He put the book into his companion’s hands, and Wylie
found himself confronted with an unmistakable portrait of Maurice in
cap and gown, wearing a rather strained smile, and gripping a roll of
paper very tight. In close proximity was a sketch of Professor
Panagiotis, all alert attention, bending forward to listen.
“Why, that’s Smith!” cried Wylie, “and this----”
“Yes, it’s awfully rummy, isn’t it? That’s the old johnny who hangs
out at Kallimeri, close here. It gave me quite a shock when I met him
in the street, but then I remembered that my brother told me he was
some Greek bigwig. Then my man is your man, after all? I say, this is
something like a joke!”
“But what possible reason can he have had for changing his name?”
cried Wylie, trying to recall anything that ought to have prepared him
for the discovery.
“And there’s another thing,” said the artist, who was enjoying himself
hugely. “He’s got a sister too many. Teffany has only one, I know. She
came up to Girtham at the same time that he entered at St Saviour’s,
and they were called ‘The Orphans’ everywhere, because they used to go
about together in deep mourning. It was for their grandfather, though.
Their father was killed in the Soudan years before, and their mother
died from the shock. So where does the other girl come in?”
“Of course she is only a half-sister; I knew that.”
“But younger than either of them, you say? Oh, this is
brain-splitting! She must be a cousin.”
“Really,” said Wylie stiffly, “I see no reason for us to trouble about
the matter. No one ever doubted that she was their sister.”
“Well, we seem to have come upon a nice little double mystery. Look
here, monsieur,” the artist cried to a man who was standing just
inside the smoking-room, “come and adjudicate. What reason could a man
have, whose name wasn’t Smith, for calling himself Smith, when he was
doing nothing more heinous than coming with his sisters to stay with
Professor Panagiotis?”
“English, of course?” said the stranger, joining them, and speaking
with a slight foreign accent. “Why need one seek a reason, then? The
pseudo-Smith is rich--perhaps noble--at home, and he desires a new
sensation. Therefore he obtains one by travelling _incognito_.”
“Well, I suppose Teffany is comfortably off”--the stranger’s eyelid
flickered as the artist spoke--“but there are no titles in the family,
that I know of. Why in the world should he do it?”
“The natural modesty of the British character,” suggested the
stranger.
“And there’s another thing. Why should he call a girl his sister who
isn’t his sister?”
“If you ask me,” said the stranger waggishly, “I should say that it
was some one else’s sister.”
“Oh, but two of them?” cried the artist. “Or, if one was genuine, how
do you account for her tolerating the bogus one?”
“Look here,” said Wylie, “that will do. You, and Smith’s--I mean
Teffany’s--bankers, and Professor Panagiotis, all persist that there
can’t be a second sister. I tell you there is, for I have seen her and
talked to her. I have the honour of both the Miss Smiths’--the Miss
Teffanys’, I mean--acquaintance, and whatever stupid mystery you may
manage to cook up, I’m certain there’s the most ordinary explanation
if we only knew it. I don’t want any more jokes on the subject.”
“Awfully sorry,” said the artist hastily, as the stranger withdrew
with a smile; “but it is funny, you know.”
“To you, perhaps. Who’s your grinning friend?”
“A Greek--Mitsopoulo his name is--good sort of chap. Knows the ropes,
puts me up to all sorts of things. His sister is married to the
Scythian Consul-General--frightfully handsome woman. But he’s only
staying here.”
“I don’t know why you called him in,” said Wylie uneasily. “We don’t
want Scythia mixed up in this business.”
The artist stared at him. “Oh, I say,” he laughed, “there’s no doubt
where you come from, is there? ‘Keep your powder dry, and hate a
Scythian like the devil’--that’s about the mark of you North-West
Frontier men, isn’t it?”
“What do you know about the North-West Frontier?” growled Wylie. “I’m
off to Professor Panagiotis to get this thing cleared up. I shall end
by wringing the old blighter’s neck for him, I know.”
“So long!” said the artist pacifically, for he had not yet got all the
information he wanted, and he settled down to a sketch for his
picture, leaving the girls’ faces blank, while Wylie, refusing the
offers of donkey-boys and cab-drivers, tramped off to Kallimeri. The
Professor had learnt to dread his coming, and distinguished on this
occasion in the very sound of his footsteps fresh cause for alarm.
Wylie gave him no opportunity of denying the identification
established by the sketch, but demanded bluntly the reason of the
change of name, and why he had not been told of it before. The only
course was to explain the whole of the circumstances, and this the
Professor took.
“You see, then,” he ended, “that not a breath of this must creep out.
Our young friend stands in the way of both Scythian and
Thraco-Dardanian ambitions, and if it was known who he was, it would
be fatally easy to arrange for his death--at the hands of the
brigands, by a fall in the mountains, by a shot from a Roumi rifle. It
would occur so naturally that there would be no room for inquiry, and
his sister, who would otherwise inherit his claims, would share his
fate. Now do you see why I kept you in the dark? It was for their
sake. I feared that by some inadvertence”--Wylie moved angrily--“Well,
now that you know the truth, and what hangs upon your silence, you
will see that nothing must be said. There is a dangerous man at your
hotel--Nicetas Mitsopoulo, a Greek traitor in Scythian employ--beware
of him.”
“Your warning comes a little late. The gentleman you mention was
present when I discovered the truth.”
Professor Panagiotis flung up his hands in despair. “Then Maurice
Teffany and his sister are as good as dead! My hopes are destroyed.”
“Don’t blither about your hopes,” said Wylie savagely, “but think what
we can do. What chance have we of saving them?”
“If we can raise the ransom by the very day stipulated--the brigands
are generally faithful to their word--but if it is an hour late----”
“Then the ransom must be raised, by hook or by crook. Can you advance
it? I will give you my bond for all I am worth, and I am certain Smith
will regard the rest as a debt of honour.”
“Alas, no! It is not in my power,” groaned the Professor.
“Nonsense! you are well known to be a rich man. How much can you lay
your hands upon in ten days?”
“I--I must explain to you,” said the Professor diffidently, “that
events have advanced since I had the good fortune to discover Mr
Teffany. In view of the happy prospects of the Greek cause, I have
felt justified in promoting a certain degree of organisation among its
adherents--enabling them to defend their homes against their ruthless
Slavic assailants----”
“And institute reprisals, no doubt?” said Wylie. “This means, of
course, that you have been arming the Emathian Greeks against the
Slavs, by way of improving matters?”
“And the cost has been very heavy,” pursued the Professor, with
humility, “and one large consignment of--defence weapons--fell,
unfortunately, into the hands of one of the Thracian committees, so
that I am actually straitened.”
“Well, can you beg, borrow, or steal five thousand pounds by the end
of next week? I think I ought to be able to manage the other fifteen
thousand, by realising everything I have in the world. If not, you
must scrape together the difference. At any cost we must stop Mr
Mitsopoulo’s little games.”
Had Wylie been present at a certain discussion at the Scythian
Consulate that evening, he would have realised that Nicetas Mitsopoulo
was playing even a deeper game than he imagined. The Greek arrived at
a private door, which was opened to him by the Consul-General himself,
a big, fair man, whose bluff exterior concealed a very serviceable
share of diplomatic _finesse_.
“Welcome, Nikita Feodorovitch!” he said pleasantly. “You will find
Chariclea ready for you. Curiously enough, immediately after your
message arrived, a sudden headache prevented her from going to the
party at the Cimbrian Consul’s.”
M. Mitsopoulo pushed past his brother-in-law rather impatiently, for
the Consul-General was always ready to find amusement, such as the
professional plotter had long since outgrown, in these tricks of the
trade. Much more in sympathy with him was his sister, Madame Ladoguin,
or Chariclea Feodorovna, as she was called by her Scythian
acquaintances. A handsome woman in a loose Levantine dress, with her
dark hair hanging below her waist in two heavy plaits, she awaited him
on a cushioned divan in her boudoir, with cigarettes and the
ever-ready samovar at hand. M. Ladoguin lounged in after him, and sat
down at a little distance, ready to act as friend of the court.
“This has been a day of events and surprises,” said Mitsopoulo,
accepting a glass of tea, with thin slices of lemon floating in it,
from his sister. “I have made such progress that I am almost
bewildered, and I bring the results of my labours to you, Chariclea,
that you may check them and assure me I have not deceived myself.”
“I will scrutinise them as rigorously as if they were the report of a
Reform Scheme,” she answered, with a lazy smile.
“That is just what I want. You have guessed, I am sure, Chariclea,
that my visit here was in connection with the disappearance, which was
not made known to the public, of a young lady of high rank. All the
indications seemed to point to her having escaped to America, but as
the Greek Panagiotis was known to have tampered with her father, it
was thought well to watch for her here. I placed the amiable
Panagiotis under surveillance, which I fear he has found inconvenient,
but as it did not appear that he was either holding or expecting any
communication with the Princess, I was about to withdraw it. Then,
only a week ago, one of my agents brought word that a breast-ornament
of gold and rubies, of a unique Byzantine design, had been offered for
sale secretly by a Jew in this city. The description corresponded with
that of one of the jewels which had disappeared with the Princess, and
I authorised the man to secure it at any cost, but, alas! at the first
hint of inquiry it disappeared again, and has probably been broken up.
Until to-day, therefore, I thought it probable that the Princess had
eluded my vigilance and was in hiding here, subsisting by the sale of
her jewels until she found it safe to communicate with Panagiotis.” He
paused impressively.
“Yes, and now?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.
“To-day I was summoned to assist at a conversation between a brainless
artist staying at the hotel, and the English officer who was captured
with the renowned Smiths----”
“Are you quite sure you were not assisting before you were summoned,
Nikita?” laughed the Consul-General. His brother-in-law passed over
the question as unworthy of an answer.
“--And I discovered a very curious fact, vouched for by three separate
authorities, that one of the ladies passing as Miss Smith is not a
Miss Smith at all. Mr and Miss Smith have no sister, and Panagiotis,
with whom they were to stay, did not expect a second lady guest.”
“Well?” demanded Mme. Ladoguin, her eyes glowing sombrely.
“The idea came to me in a flash, but it was too improbable to accept
without investigation. I went at once to the station, and by great
good fortune succeeded in finding the guard of the train that was
wrecked near Przlepka. Otherwise I might have had to wait two or three
days. He recollected the party perfectly, and described them--the
brother an ordinary, impassive Englishman, one sister vivacious in the
wooden English way, but the other totally different. He said himself
that he would have guessed her to be a Scythian, as also the aunt who
was killed in the accident. With another happy flash, I asked him if
he had happened to visit the aunt’s grave at Przlepka. He had done so,
and the name upon the stone was Evdotia Vladimirovna. That was the
Christian name of Madame Lyofsky, the lady-in-waiting who vanished
with the Princess.”
“Excellent! Well done! Continue, pray!” cried Mme. Ladoguin, clapping
her hands softly.
“I could get no more from the man, for he had, of course, only been
able to observe the Smiths from Tatarjé to Przlepka. To obtain
further information, I must go myself to Tatarjé and question the
car-attendant on the Orient Express, who must have plenty to tell. But
at present, what is your view of the case, my dear Chariclea?”
“There can only be one view,” she responded quickly. “The Princess
fell in with these Smiths in Paris, and either by bribery or entreaty,
induced them to adopt Mme. Lyofsky and herself as members of their
party, flattering herself that she would thus escape discovery.”
“So I should have thought but for something else that I learned
to-day. The man Smith and his sister are in reality no more Smith than
the Princess is. Their true name is Teffany.”
“Well?” asked the Consul-General curiously.
“Teffany--which is Theophanis,” said M. Mitsopoulo. His sister sprang
up from her cushions.
“What! Nicetas, you don’t mean----”
“I mean that Panagiotis has succeeded, where his predecessors failed,
in unearthing or manufacturing an English representative of the senior
male line of the descendants of John Theophanis.”
“But why then trouble himself with the Princess?” asked M. Ladoguin
helplessly.
“Oh, that’s clear enough,” was the contemptuous reply of his wife.
“She is to marry the claimant.”
“Now there I can’t agree with you, Chariclea,” said her brother.
“Panagiotis is far too wise for that. The united claims of the two
would be absolutely unassailable, and there would be no room for him.
He might choose to arrange such a marriage by slow degrees, inventing
hindrances and delays so as to make his own services appear
indispensable, but it would be madness to begin by throwing the two
young people together.”
“But we can hardly charge the worthy Professor with the railway
accident and the capture by the brigands, can we?” asked M. Ladoguin,
laughing. “We know better than that.”
“No, that was certainly unforeseen on his part. But why plot so
clumsily as to let them travel by the same train?”
“He must have had some scheme for separating them as soon as they
became interested in one another,” suggested Mme. Ladoguin, without
much conviction.
“Now I am going to propound a common-sense view of the matter, since
you two clever people are at a loss,” said her husband. “What if
Panagiotis has washed his hands of the girl--the Princess, I
mean--since he discovered his male heir; and what if she took the
journey entirely on her own account, enraged at the neglect of her
claims? That would account for his not expecting her. The meeting with
the Smiths would then be a pure coincidence.”
“Absurd!” said Mme. Ladoguin sharply, following the sound Higher
Critical rule of rejecting the obvious. “Do you suggest that these
young people, whose interests are diametrically opposed, fell in love
at first sight, like characters of Shakespeare, and agreed to--to pool
their respective claims?”
“Possibly. Isn’t it more reasonable than to suppose that Panagiotis
brought them together and explained the situation, with a view to a
State marriage?”
“Stop!” cried Mitsopoulo suddenly. “Adopting the coincidence theory
provisionally, must we suppose that the situation is explained at all?
In my view, Panagiotis arranged the disappearance of the Princess, but
she was too impatient to await the date he had fixed. He had intended
to produce her a month or so hence, when the young man was entirely in
his power; but naturally he says nothing to either of them. She
escapes sooner than he wished, and falls in with the other claimant
and his sister in Paris. There was the coincidence. Now, is it likely
that either party would even be aware of the other’s existence, since
it is to the interest of Panagiotis to keep them in ignorance for his
own purposes? Therefore, why should they confide in each other at
all?”
“Oh, but everything must have come out since--or at least, half of
everything,” said M. Ladoguin, generalising unwisely on a common-sense
basis. “The man and his sister, who are new to the idea of their
dignity, could not possibly keep silence.” Mitsopoulo nodded,
remembering Zoe’s confidence to Wylie about the gold medal, and his
brother-in-law went on, much encouraged. “With the Princess it is
different. She must be capable of determined secrecy, from the skill
with which she concealed her preparations for escape, and she has long
believed herself the heir of the Eastern Empire. Finding herself
confronted with a claim antagonistic and superior to her own, what
will be her impulse? Will it not be to retain her secret haughtily,
watching for the chance of crushing her rival? I should say that if
you want her back, you will find her thankful to come.”
“Do you want her back?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.
“Most certainly,” replied her brother; “she is an invaluable asset,
tracing an uninterrupted Greek and Orthodox descent from John
Theophanis. The Englishman’s claim is the best by the ordinary law of
Europe, but would break down hopelessly when tried by the Imperial
family statutes. She ought to have been married long ago, and her
claim carried into the Scythian Imperial house; but she is in a
troublesome position--too important and yet not important enough. It
is believed that she aspired to an alliance with the Emperor
himself--and if I had had the direction of affairs I fancy I should
have settled it in that way. But it was otherwise decided, and she
rejected with contumely the Grand Duke Ivan Petrovitch, who was
suggested to her as a suitor. She also took matters into her own
hands, or Panagiotis persuaded her that she did.”
“Then she must be taken care of, I suppose,” drawled Mme. Ladoguin,
“which is a pity, or she might have been disposed of with the other
inconveniences. They are merely inconveniences, are they not? A
judicious massacre, now, or an accident with the dynamite which these
reprehensible bands of brigands manage somehow to get hold of?”
“No, I think not,” said her brother, after a moment’s reflection. “You
forget Panagiotis, and that blue-eyed swashbuckler who was captured
with them. They will make out that we were anxious to get rid of the
man and his claims, and there will be unpleasantness. What must be
done is to make him confess the baselessness of his pretensions. He
must own that he was tempted by Panagiotis to put himself forward as
a Theophanis, without the slightest ground for the assertion. That
will dispose of both him and his sister. How the details are to be
arranged we must discuss another day.”
“I should recommend the monastery of Hadgi-Antoniou if you want any
one kept out of the way for an indefinite time,” smiled M. Ladoguin.
“Just so; and plenty of palm-oil to obviate any difficulties. I must
get an order for funds from Pavelsburg,” said Mitsopoulo.
Wylie also was seeking funds at that moment. A letter to his lawyers
was directing them to sell out all his securities, and to mortgage to
its utmost value the little Border estate which called him master.
However onerous the conditions, he must have fifteen thousand pounds
in ten days.